


The Boy and Beagle

by kate_the_reader



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Animal Transformation, M/M, Pets, Pining, dreamshare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11037135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader
Summary: Arthur’s reaction to his dog forge delighted Eames. And the more he thinks about it, the more he wants to see that reaction again.





	The Boy and Beagle

**Author's Note:**

> Once, when Arthur seemed sad after meeting a dog in the street, Eames called on a little-known talent and forged a Staffordshire terrier in a dream garden to amuse him.
> 
> That story is [dog](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7380037). This one is the sequel. 
> 
> And thanks to earlgreytea68, who encouraged me to think more about the possibilities.

Their relationship has been easing, relaxing, opening up, no longer so spiky, but Arthur has rarely granted Eames the totally open pleasure he bestowed on Eames-as-a-dog. The warmth, the laughter, the dimples. _Oh god, the dimples!_

Eames _wants_ that again, craves it.

So, on a job that’s going badly, full of the little tediums and annoyances that come with an irritating client, Eames can’t resist trying again. Just to see if he can elicit that delight, that carefree grin. To see if he can get Arthur to relax and forget the tension that’s pinching a permanent frown between his brows.

He spends some time thinking about the dog he will forge. It must be a different one, the same Staffordshire terrier would just make Arthur suspicious, and that’s not what Eames wants — quite the opposite. But it has to be a dog Eames knows reasonably well. He decides to try a beagle his grandfather had when Eames was little, and practises in his hotel room at night. It’s going quite well until he starts barking excitedly when he sees himself in the mirror. The room phone rings and he has to drop the forge quickly and answer it. It’s their chemist, who has the room next door and strikes him as a boringly literal-minded scientist.

“Did you hear that dog barking?” she says. “Sounded just like it was in the hotel.”

“Nah,” says Eames. “I was in the shower, didn’t hear anything."

“Ohhh,” she says, drawing the word out. “I better let you get back to that then.”

The next afternoon he suggests to Arthur they go under and test the layout. 

“I don’t really have time,” says Arthur.

“Don’t have time?” says Eames, “you must be joking, Arthur. A couple of minutes. Ari needs the escape hatch checked. And you’re good with hatches, so I’ve heard.” He raises an eyebrow, hoping his reference to Arthur’s legendary “drop without gravity”, so much discussed in their tight little world, will mollify him.

“Well, okay,” says Arthur, moving towards the lawn chairs. ( _Where does he find them?_ Eames has often wondered. Any work site they use for more than a few days is equipped with loungers to dream on.) “I guess.”

“Thanks, darling,” says Eames, secretly tweaking the PASIV dial to give them five minutes rather than Arthur’s standard, efficient two. After the first dog-dream, Arthur had been so sorry to have had so little time with the dog; Eames wants both to give him more time and to spend as much time as possible with Arthur the relaxed dog lover.

The layout is a quaint English village, with meandering lanes around a village green. There’s even a duck pond, for heaven’s sake. He can't imagine how Ari has managed an escape hatch. The client may be annoying, but the mark’s nostalgia for an imagined rural idyll is so perfect for what Eames wants to do, it’s almost fate. 

“Best if we split up, eh? More efficient,” he says, turning down one lane while Arthur goes in the other direction. As soon as he’s sure he won't be seen, he drops into the dog forge, and _oh god_ , it’s hard to focus with all the scents and sounds that assail him from hedges and gardens all around. Mice and moles in the undergrowth, car exhaust and compost and the faintest waft of a meat pie from somewhere. But behind it all, as he’d known there would be, is Arthur’s cologne. It’s distinctive and much loved, even in reality, to Eames’ human nose. And here, with the senses of a hunting dog, it almost knocks him sideways with the power of the longing it conjures. It’s not as if Eames doesn't know that everything about Arthur tugs at him, but this experience is even more visceral than it had been the first time. The passage of time has only made him more hopelessly besotted. Even if Arthur never feels the same. 

He puts his nose into the breeze and runs after the scent with a sense of pure physical joy he’s hardly ever experienced, the long grass under the hedges whipping against his legs, his ears flying back, his mouth open in a grin.

He skids around a corner to find Arthur walking along a dusty lane, moodily kicking a stone, his hands in his trouser pockets and his eyes down. He can't help his excited barking. Arthur looks up, frowning, and then grinning. “Here, boy!” he calls, bending forward, hands slapping his knees, “come here!” 

Eames bounds up, straight into Arthur’s face, laughing a dog laugh. He’s trying to be careful not to crowd Arthur too much, but it’s surprisingly hard to resist the doggy urge to lick him all over his face and bounce around crazily. 

“Wanna play?” says Arthur, looking around for something. He steps over to the hedge and breaks off a dead stick. “Fetch?” he says, and throws the stick down the lane. Even if Eames wanted to, he could not resist the urge to race after it. Returning, he drops it at Arthur’s feet, looking up into his face, begging for another go. And Arthur throws the stick again. This time, Eames doesn't drop it, but puts it in his hand. Again, and now Eames keeps hold of the stick, using it to tug Arthur down the lane, to where he’s just seen the escape-hatch-hole-in the-hedge. He stops next to it, tilting his head at it and looking at Arthur. “What, boy?” says Arthur, “what’s through there?”

Eames frowns, feeling his ears pull up comically, and tugs on the stick. He can't lead Arthur through the gap, the dream will be different on the other side, and he has no idea if the forge would hold. He can't risk it. Fortunately, Arthur gets the idea and turns sideways to step through on his own, with as much dignity as is possible when twigs are snagging at his clothes. Eames barks at him (he’s laughing inside at the sight of Arthur almost being pulled through a bush backwards, decidedly not something he’d ever do topside).

Arthur disappears, but his voice floats over to Eames: “Oh. Oh! _That’s_ clever! Huh, Ari. Eames _will_ be impressed.”

By the time he steps back through the gap, Eames is far down the lane, turning the corner. The clock is running down and he has to have time to get back to himself, recover from the forge, so much stronger this time, somehow. He hides in a little copse of trees next to the green, and, fighting down the desire to chase the ducks on the pond, thinks his way back into himself. He’s left with a raging thirst, an odd taste in his mouth, and a heightened sense of smell, which tells him Arthur is nearby. It’s not just his cologne he’s aware of now, but his underlying warm scent, his Arthurness. 

He steps out of the trees. “Oh there you are, darling!” 

“Hey, Eames!” 

Does Arthur look a tiny bit … guilty?

“I checked the escape hatch. Really clever. I might have missed it though, it’s hidden in the hedge. But there was this fantastic dog. It was like he showed it to me?”

“Oh yes? Does it work?” 

“It does! You’ll be impressed.” Arthur glances at him sidelong, raising an eyebrow. “Want me to show you?”

“You know what I’d really like, if we have time? A pint in an English village pub. It’s been a while. And I’m really thirsty.”

“Me too,” says Arthur, laughing. He looks a bit shy. “I played fetch with the dog.”

“Dogs just keep showing up somehow?”

“Yeah, weird isn’t it? Oh, here’s a pub!”

The building in front of them is straight out of a Hollywood fantasy of an English village. Eames is going to have to have a word with Ari. Right now, he’s just desperate for a pint of ale. He looks up at the sign: “The Boy and Beagle”.

“A pint of your finest,” he tells the barman, who pulls a pint of Laughing Dog ale and pushes it across the bar to him with a look that Eames tries not to see as knowing. 

“I'll have the same,” says Arthur, leaning his elbows on the bar. “Cheers, Eames!”

Arthur doesn't say anything to Eames afterwards about the dog, but he’s more relaxed, even smiling. The job gets done, despite the client, and within days they are clearing out the workspace.

“See you soon, I hope,” says Arthur as they stand at the door together, checking they haven't left anything incriminating behind. The loungers still litter the space. 

“Yes, give me a shout if anything good comes up, I’ve nothing planned,” says Eames, turning to go down the stairs, wishing he could think of an excuse to stay, to follow Arthur to wherever he’s going, take a walk with him — anything. He can't though, so he goes to the airport and catches his flight to London. He stays with a friend, takes long walks in parks, talks to dog walkers. In a pub one afternoon he snaps a picture of his beer and sends it to the last number he has for Arthur, not really expecting a reply. 

*

The next time he hears from him, it’s an email with details of a job in Melbourne. It doesn't sound all that interesting, and it’s winter there, but Eames replies: “Yes” straight away and goes to pack. 

He wonders if he can create another opportunity to go below with Arthur alone. And he practises another dog. A big brown-and-white-spotted German pointer with soulful eyes that one of his boarding school teachers had often brought to sports matches. A calm, even melancholy, dog; no excited barking this time to raise suspicions in the hotel.

But the dream space is supposed to be an office building on an unremarkable city street, and Eames can't think why a dog would be there, alone. That would only make Arthur realise what he’s up to. He’ll just have to hope something presents itself. 

The job is as unremarkable as he feared and Melbourne in winter isn't really a strollers’ city. There are some good pubs though and one evening he suggests a drink.

When Arthur arrives, he looks surprised that Eames is alone. “Where’s everyone else?” he says, frowning slightly. 

“I didn't invite them,” says Eames, pulling out a chair for Arthur.

“Oh.” Arthur seems a little thrown, but he sits down and lets Eames order him “whatever beer you’re drinking, since you’re the expert”. He gives Eames an unreadable look, and then his mouth quirks up a tiny amount and Eames is sure he got the beer photo. 

They walk back to the hotel together after a couple of rounds and a bit of chat about mutual friends. Eames is on the point of suggesting a nightcap in his room, but Arthur gets off the elevator and turns to go to his room with a cheery “see you tomorrow!”.

The job’s going so smoothly, and the architect is so good, that Eames fears they won't even need to check the build. Arthur’s not stressed, either, so there’s no real excuse for a dog. But late the next afternoon, when it’s just them left behind, because Eames can always think of an excuse to stay late with him, Arthur tips his chair back and cranes to look over. “Want to go under? Just for a quick look round? I’m sure Ramirez has it under control, but you know …”

“Sure, never does any harm to check,” says Eames. It's impossible to decide if Arthur has any other intent; his face is neutral, deliberately so, Eames thinks.

The office building is nice enough, the corridors sufficiently confusing, the street outside lined with trees. And there’s a small park opposite. 

“Why do we need a park?” 

“Ramirez wanted to practise, and why not?” says Arthur. “Want to go for a stroll? The weather’s better than topside.”

That's undeniable, cold winter rain has been falling in sheets all day in Melbourne. And Eames always wants to stroll with Arthur. 

The park is nicely laid out — paths bordered with shrubbery and benches under the trees. A dog could slip away from his walker here. If only Eames could think of a reason to slip away from Arthur. He can't think of a good one, but he gestures vaguely. “I’m just going to go …” And walks off behind a large bush, not allowing himself to wonder what Arthur thinks. 

It’s got easier to drop into a dog-forge. The perspective is different through this taller dog’s eyes, but he doesn't linger in the undergrowth. He gives the dog a trailing leash and steps back onto the path. 

Arthur is sitting on a bench, head tipped back and eyes closed against the sunshine. Eames stops a few paces off, just to look. Arthur’s hands are on his thighs, legs outstretched, ankles crossed, revealing striped socks. Eames steps closer, his claws scraping against the bricks of the path. 

Arthur opens his eyes. “Hello,” he says. “You ran away?” Eames tilts his head. “You’re gorgeous.” Arthur leans forward and holds out his hand.

And even though it feels really peculiar, Eames puts his chin on Arthur’s knee and looks up at him. Arthur’s hand lands on his head, his fingers scratching behind Eames’ ears. He tries to relax into the sensation, but the thought of what it would feel like in reality, of when such an intimate gesture might be bestowed, is too much. He pulls back, takes a step away.

“Oh,” says Arthur, disappointed. “Well … Goodbye.” Eames turns and walks off.

When he rejoins Arthur in his own skin, the melancholy look on his face sends a pang through Eames. “What’s wrong, darling?” He sits down next to him. 

Arthur turns. “I think … I think you should stop, Eames.”

“What?” But before Arthur can reply, time runs out and they’re waking up next to each other. Arthur doesn't look at him as he packs up the PASIV, and Eames stays on his lounger, his face turned away. 

“I really appreciated it,” Arthur says quietly, at last. “It was fun the first couple of times. But today … please stop.”

“What?” Eames says again, turning to look at Arthur. “You knew?”

“I was pretty sure the first time.” He sits down, looking at Eames now. “It was surprising. But I think I got what you intended?” Eames nods. “And then the second time … that was fun. It was fun to play. I was intrigued. I really do miss dogs. I haven't had one since I was a little kid. We had to leave him behind when my dad got posted to Germany. I was never allowed another one. My mom said she didn't want to go through that again. Me getting too attached.”

“Oh Arthur.”

“So I let you do it. It was … kind. And I was charmed. But you looked too sad today. So I think you should stop.”

Eames sits up so he can look straight at Arthur. “The first time, I just wanted to make you smile. Because you did seem sad about that dog we met. And of course, it was an interesting challenge. The second time, I thought you needed a break from all the irritations of that stupid job. That worked, didn’t it?”

Arthur smiles. “Yes. It worked.”

“And it was fun, as well as a challenge, I'll admit. But today was … I’m sorry. I shouldn't have got so close today. I put myself in a position … and then you …” He gestures at the back of his head. “I didn't want that just as a dog.” He stands up, the lounger skidding across the floor. “So I backed off.”

“I understood, Eames.” Arthur stands up too and comes across to Eames, reaches for him and pulls him in, hand on the back of his head, gazing into his eyes. “That first day, you dog-kissed me. Kiss me now properly, please.”

So Eames does. 

And Arthur kisses him, and even without dog senses, it’s overwhelming. Arthur is dizzying, so close and warm, his beautiful mouth and his strong hands on the back of Eames’ head and his slender thigh pressing between Eames’ legs. His relentlessness pressing Eames backwards till they’re against the wall.

When Arthur finally pulls back, his hand on Eames’ jaw, his thumb rubbing along his bottom lip, his eyes hooded, he says, quietly: “Thank you, Eames.”

Eames can hardly find his voice to reply, but he manages: “You understood.”

The next morning, in Arthur’s hotel room, in the tangle of Arthur’s bed, Eames straddles him, kissing his dimples, nipping at his collarbones.

“That first dog was really you, you know.” Arthur laughs up at him. “Huge muscly shoulders, daft grin, all marked up … how did you think I wouldn't guess?”

“I never said I didn't want you to guess, did I?” And Eames leans down and kisses him again.


End file.
